Real Life Maze Runner in Morocco

This is the translation of Yesterday’s post about the real life Maze Runner

The inner Medina(walled city and marketplace), in the city of Fes in the country of Morocco is one of the most fascinating cities in the world. The entire city is a giant tapestry of buildings. The best way to describe it is a mix between the walls in Maze Runner, the twisted cities in Inception, and the rooftop hopping cities in a Jason Borne movie. Zach Batty describes the city as an amoeba that divided repeatedly under a microscope until it has filled all the possible space under the glass slide. All the homes, buildings, and stores are connected with a literal maze of corridors between and beneath them.

We are so excited to go running. Imagine running with the bulls in Spain just without the bulls. Imagine the craziest maze you have ever seen. Imagine what kind of an adventure it would be to get lost in these alleys and then try and find your way back in a land where you can not effectively communicate with anyone. The other big difference is that the roads are slivers of the width of any street you can imagine. Most are arms width. Some are wider some are narrower.

Zach has an idea as we get started on our run this morning. He says let’s just keep turning left and then when we hit the halfway point we will turn around and just turn right until we get back to our Dar(House). We are starting our run at 7:10 a.m. and breakfast is set to be ready at 8:30 back at our Dar. The people we rented this AirBnB from are providing everything we need including meals if we ask. We plan to be back at the Dar by 8:00 and showered by 8:30 so Rosie won’t have to be alone with a bunch of unfamiliar Moroccans.

We exit both doors of the house into a narrow corridor and turn left. Two more lefts and we dead end into someone else’s Dar. We turn around and head back out. After another couple of turns we find another alley that terminates into someone’s Dar. Maybe this plan isn’t going to work after all. We decide to leave our fates to chance and just run without a system. Even though we all started the Nike+ app the seven story walls limit any kind of GPS mapping that could otherwise come through. We conscientiously choose to just run and hope to ask some Fesi’s (people native to Fes and the Medina) for directions. They should be able to get us back….right?

We just start running in any direction that seems like it doesn’t lead to a dead end. At first we head downward through the twists and turns. The Dar we are staying in sits high up on the hill near the upper edge of the Medina(walled city and marketplace). It has a great view overlooking the entire valley from the top of our roof. We had heard the day before that if you are going down you are headed into the heart of the Medina and if you are going up you are headed out. So down we run. At this time in the morning there aren’t many people out and about. Most of the doors hanging on the alley walls are closed. We run 100 meters at best before we have to choose one turn or another. We continue winding down into the busier part of the Medina where we start to see more people. Some of the native Moroccan kids kids give us high-fives as we pass and a few older people say, “Bonjour.” The busier parts of the medina are now showing some real life. We pass people left and right and now it is starting to become a little more like rush hour in an airport. We weave in and out of the crowd as we run. A few more turns and we start to head up now which means we are heading toward outer walls of the medina. We start up a steeper incline pounding the 400 year old cement and cobblestone with the rhythm of our feet.

We pass a large group of older teenagers who, I assume, are going to school and two of them jokingly start running up the narrow hill with us. I encourage them by waving them up to follow us. They take the bait and start running behind us. To all of our surprise these two start to catch up to us and then overtake us on this fairly steep incline. I guess when you live here and walk these same paths everyday you build some pretty good hill climbing muscles. They finally stop near the top of the rise and we pause to take a couple of pictures with them.

We keep running and soon find that we have reached the outer walls with large arabic looking keyholes as gateways large enough to drive a couple cars through.

Beyond the city walls Andrew spots the city cemetery up a little farther on the hill. This is exciting to us because we wanted to visit it when we saw it on our into the walled fortress the night before. We get a little pep in our step and cruise up the hill. The cemetery is as ancient as the medina. The tombstones go on forever. I wonder how many generations of families have found their final resting place here.

On the ridge of the hill is a donkey standing amidst the weathered and worn gravesites. We take pictures together and then I sneak up on the donkey to snap a couple of shots of it. It doesn’t move. I wonder if it is because the tombs are so close together that he has a hard time walking around. I keep sneaking up on the beast and realize that I could probably reach out and touch it if I wanted.

We see the time and realize we have to get back fairly quickly. We reenter the stone gates and start heading back the way we think we came from. We recognize some key turning points and we head back in. It doesn’t take long before we lose our sense of direction and realize we are lost. We see a sign for the Dar Tarjine Restaurant which we had an amazing dinner at the night before. We stop and think about heading to the restaurant but ask a local. He doesn’t speak English so he grabs a friend to help translate. The friend doesn’t speak very well either but seems quite confident in knowing the directions to Dar Marnima (our house). We follow him around and it quickly becomes apparent that he is leading us astray. I whisper as much to Zach and then realize he really can’t understand us so I holler up to Andrew the same message to Andrew. By now we have lost any bearing on our directions and feel a little reliant our guide. It is past 8:30 and we are certain Rosie is freaking out by now. Zach tries to The send a text but it doesn’t go through. Finally, Andrew turns on International roaming for data and GPS in spite of the charges. We are right. This native dweller of the Medina has no idea where we are going and we are now quite a ways away from where we should be. We all agree that we are going to kindly thank him and find our way back ourselves. We say thanks and dismiss our errant guide. He won’t have anything to do with it. It took him a long time to wander around the Aladdin style city with us in tow and he was determined to get his reward. We turn the tables and start telling him directions. Again and again each time we say to wind to the right or left he assures us HE knows where we are going with the immediate reply, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. This way. This way.” He grabs a friend who seems just as confident that he knows the best place to go also. They get faster and faster as we get closer and closer.This plays to our benefit because once we do recognize a forked path close to home we veer off from them. I’m behind Andrew and Zach and as quietly as possible holler up to them that I know where we are are and that we should backtrack. It’s too late by the time I get their attention we are already at a dead end. We do head back the way we came. Right at the intersection where we lost our guide is where the maze dweller finds us again. Three more turns and we are back at our Dar and sure enough the maze dweller demands his money. In we go. Rosie is happy to see us. I grab some coins and head back out to the open hand of our guide. He looks at the money and asks for more. Zach shuts the door but then feels guilty so he grabs some bills and delivers it to him.

45 minutes and a couple miles more than we had hoped for but, we are safe and sound back in our Dar ready for breakfast. What an adventure. The Medina in Fes would make the coolest adventure race on the planet.